Liberals have mastered most aspects of manipulating an already-sympathetic mainstream media to their advantage, but there is perhaps no liberal skill more highly developed and accomplished than this one: their ability to exploit virtually any situation or occurrence to their political advantage by making an outrageously inaccurate accusatory statement about conservatives. Liberals feel no compunction about making the accusation on Page 1. The retraction -- if it ever happens at all -- is buried deep on page 27, seen by no one.

It seems that almost every single headline or trending story on the figurative front page (printed, digital or broadcast) of the liberal mainstream media (the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, CBS/NBC/ABC News, Facebook, "Good Morning America," "The View," etc.) falls into one of the categories below. The particulars may change depending on what the circumstances of the day might be, but the general themes below remain constant and reliable, and can be adapted to the President, another officeholder or any high-profile conservative as needed:

• Conservatives only want tax breaks so their wealthy donors can give them more money.
• Every natural disaster (hurricanes, floods, tornados, etc.) is further evidence of the harm caused by Global Warming, the existence of which conservatives continue to deny -- even in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus. In other words, natural disasters are the fault of conservatives.
• Conservatives are anti-women, proven by their desire to defund Planned Parenthood and their unwillingness to address gender-based wage inequality.
• Conservatives are anti-Hispanic, proven by their irrational obsession with immigration and their desire to keep Hispanics out of the country.
• Conservatives have little regard for the environment and will willingly let environmental protections slide if doing so means that their big business cronies will prosper.
• Conservatives care more about Wall Street than Main Street and always prefer policies that favor the high-end financial class to the detriment of the ‘average guy.’
• Conservatives are warmongers and always favor a big military buildup, with lots of fancy weapons to make themselves feel powerful.
• Conservatives applaud police brutality against the poor and downtrodden, especially against minorities.
• Conservatives want to perpetuate a climate of discrimination and oppression against blacks, and therefore favor limiting or eliminating government-mandated race-based admission and hiring programs.
• Conservatives are morally inferior to liberals, as evidenced by their admiration of Southern Civil War symbols, their acceptance of hate groups and their intolerance of same-sex marriage/gender-identity issues. It has nothing to do with conservatives’ religious beliefs (religious beliefs are an anachronistic irrelevancy anyway) and everything to do with conservatives’ moral shortcomings and lack of intellectual sophistication.
• Conservatives are heartless and cold, since they want to repeal and replace Obamacare, even if that means pulling healthcare away from the previously uninsured, resulting in the death of thousands. Conservatives want to hurt the elderly by ending Medicaid, in order to divert those funds to other wealthy conservative interests.
• Conservatives are self-centered, short-sighted and fundamentally dishonest, while liberals are selfless, far-seeing and primarily concerned only with the greater good.

Liberals know all this quite well. They know how the game is played and they know how to get around the rules. All the above anti-conservative clichés can be convincingly, factually refuted, but the explanations are long and tedious, well past the attention span of the average person.

Liberals also know the “40-20-40 Rule,” which is this: About 40% of voters will always vote for the liberal candidate, even if there is a verified, un-Photoshopped picture of the liberal standing over a body with a dripping knife. That diehard 40% always goes liberal and nothing will budge them.

There is roughly an equivalent 40% amount who will always vote conservative. That leaves the 20% undecided/swing voting bloc. Some in that central 20% group are thoughtful, well-informed voters who simply have no automatic pre-determined allegiance to an arbitrary party. But many in that 20% group are what could be characterized as “casually-attentive.” These are people who do end up making the effort to vote, but they pay little attention to policy or issue specifics throughout the long haul of the campaign process, instead making up their mind very late and being easily influenced by popular soundbites/headlines and trending social media stories.

Only three times since JFK was elected in 1960 (which can quite reasonably be thought of as the first presidential election held under the influence of the modern media age) has the popular vote percentage margin been in double digits: 1964 (Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater), 1972 (Richard Nixon over George McGovern) and 1984 (Ronald Reagan over Walter Mondale). All of the other elections have had popular vote margins in the single-digit range, even the “historic” election of Barack Obama in 2008 (+7.27%) and the “landslide” victory of Reagan over the woefully inept Jimmy Carter in 1980 (+9.74%).

Yes, it’s true that we use the Electoral College system to determine the winner of our presidential elections, in order to rightfully prevent an unrepresentative, overwhelmingly large and lopsided voting group (such as California) from having a disproportionate influence over the rest of the country. It is further true that if the candidates were aiming to maximize their national popular vote totals instead of looking to win individual states, then the candidates would campaign and spend their time and money quite differently than they do now. A concerted effort by a Republican presidential candidate in California would very likely turn out a far higher total of Republican votes and would therefore significantly reduce the Democrat’s numerical margin of victory. But that is not how the election is structured, so under our current Electoral College system, the Democratic candidate collects a statistically-aberrant portion of California’s votes, throwing the national popular vote totals into misleading disarray.

If the 40-20-40 Rule strikes you as reasonable, it’s easy to see how the mainstream media can influence that center 20% group with their quick hits, trending stories and clichéd soundbites/headlines. Even under the Electoral College system, that 20% group is crucial. The single-digit closeness of the so-called “battleground states” (WI, NC, NH, NV, MI, PA, OH, FL, CO, etc.) that determine the eventual winner is proof of that. Page 1 accusations are central to liberals’ electoral strategy, a critical component to their game plan. Unfortunately for conservatives, they don’t even seem to understand that a game is being played, much less how to win it.